The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of
God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit…
What kind of relationship
do you have with the Trinity?
Most people eschew isolation and yearn to be
connected; our Trinitarian God is no different.
From the beginning of time God has sought a relationship with the human
beings he created. In the Book of Exodus,
God proclaims his own name, LORD, to the people waiting for Moses at the foot of Mt. Sinai, then
goes on to expand on what this name means using explicit covenant
language: by his own reckoning, God is a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger
and rich in kindness and fidelity. God is thus, by definition, relational; God
wants all to respond to his invitation to covenant relationship. The song of Azariah from the third chapter of
the Book of Daniel celebrates this ongoing invitation, blessing God’s desire
for relationship with his earthly creation, from the time of our fathers to the depths of humankind today.
Indeed, God
so loved the world that he gave his only Son, John’s Gospel tells us, so that everyone who believes in him might
have eternal life. Jesus is a gift
to humankind, given over to death by God the Father so that through his death
we might never die. For God desires that
all should one day enjoy perfect union, an eternal relationship in the love
that is God.
Within his very self, God is also
relational, revealed to us in a Trinity of persons, as Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians notes: we encounter the
Trinitarian relationship through the
grace or presence of Jesus, the love
of God revealed through that presence, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit who is the source of our
union in that love. It is union that we
are called to, union with God and with other, a union of encouragement and peace
in community with one another, a covenant-like relationship built upon a
foundation of patience and mercy, kindness
and fidelity. To live in this relationship of love for one
another is to touch, ever so briefly, the love that is Trinitarian, a love we
hope one day to know in the fullness of perfect union with God.
This post is based on Fr.
Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle
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